05.27.08: Me Time

Dear Friends and Family,

After much deliberation, we decided to spend the long weekend in town. It'd give us a chance to work out, eat well, clean house, save money and catch up on sleep. After two weekends on the road, all things I desperately needed.

Mr. mouse signed us up for a 5K next weekend. My second 5K attempt. The first was last summer, with colleagues from old work. And, sad as it was, I couldn't complete it - heart rate of a runner, lung capacity of a couch potato. This year, figured some "training" was in order if I wasn't going to feel like a complete loser. Thursday night, we did 2K. Friday afternoon, I did 3K. Saturday afternoon, we did 4K. And, yesterday, we did 5K. Figure we'll go out one more day this week. And, knock on wood, be in decent shape for Sunday.

Friday, our team made the collective decision to work from home and to take the afternoon off. I met Mr. mouse for lunch and walked home from his office. Spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on TiVO and did an hour of yoga to stretch out some sore limbs. We made pasta with sausage for dinner and the rest of the night escapes my memory. Oh. We went to pick up mail and order my bridesmaid's dress.

Saturday, we spent the morning cleaning up house - a couple rooms down, still more to go. Did our run mid-afternoon. We had an early dinner of ham fried rice and chicken tortilla soup. Mr mouse spent the evening running errands while I curled up on the couch to polish off The Omnivore's Dilemma. Then, we opened up the Scrabble board. Mr. mouse trounced me. I should have swapped out some tiles or tried kwyjibo.

Sunday, we walked up to a local bakery to pick up some bread for breakfast. They do good bread. I'm hooked. Then, we biked over to the bar for breakfast II and the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix. I'm loving the Sunday morning at the bar watching the race ritual. It's a bar, but it's effectively a restaurant for Sunday mornings - people bring their kids, everyone's watching the race and the food is good, too. We went for a longer bike ride after the race along the lake. Got home. Showered. And, Mr. mouse watched the Indy 500 while I napped on the couch. We ventured out for dinner. We went to Spring, and as usual, they treated us royally.

Which brings us sadly to Monday. We slept in on Monday. Mr. mouse went out for some last minute groceries to make food to bring over to B and Chef M's for dinner. We made peppermint ice cream "drowned" in coconut milk with mango (inspired by our dessert at Spring) and a wilted green salad with beans, tomatoes, roasted corn and roasted red peppers. We did our jog. Showered. And headed over to their house with our fingers crossed for good weather. Fortunately, it was perfect out and we feasted on stuffed dates and foie gras stuffed hamburgers with beet salad, potato salad and our salad before turning our attention to dessert. B's parents were in town and we met a friend of B's. She has the most interesting stories. And, as usual, as fulfilling as the food was, the conversation was even more so.

Last night was the first night we were tempted to turn on the A/C. But, we held out. And, this morning it's much cooler. We'll see how far into summer we can make it before caving. Oh, one more note, with rising gas prices and food prices and everything prices, we're sadly on a budget. Fortunately, I should be able put all of the good lessons I learned over the winter to good use. And, we'll have to make a conscious effort to eat out less. My guess is once or twice a week vs. three or four times a week. It'll be good for us.


Cheers!
mouse